Transportation as Part of Your Nursing Contract

Now when it comes to transportation, some companies may provide transportation to and from the facility. Sometimes from the facility back to your housing and from your housing to the facility, you may have to rent a car. Some travel nurses will ship their car from their home state to their
assignment state. For every assignment I’ve gone on, I just rent a car. It’s just easier and makes more sense for me financially. The agency I’ve worked with had a discount code, so my car rentals only cost about $650-$700 a month. When you’re pulling in $3k-$4k a month, the expenses don’t really seem that much of a big deal.

So, definitely do what’s best for you financially, but with all that being said, travel nursing is great. It definitely has its challenges because you have to learn to be super flexible.

One hospital’s policies will differentiate from the next hospital’s policies. Your scope of practice as a nurse will differentiate from state to state. I worked at one facility where the nurse did everything – the nurse started IVs, the nurse did breathing treatments the nurse was the phlebotomist. Then I worked at another facility where the nurse could not do anything. All you were doing was meds and assessment; if you started an IV, that was an incident report. You would get in trouble.

One of the challenges with travel nursing is just learning the different policies of different hospitals and just remaining within your scope of practice.

Another big one is that you’re going to be away from your friends, family, and loved ones for a good amount of time. Especially if you’re one of those travel nurses who, once you finish one assignment, hop into another because some don’t want to take breaks. They want to work six months straight and then take the remaining six months off. To each their own. You may be the first to float as a travel nurse.

Travel nurses are known to get the worst assignments because the staff nurses feel like they’re making the big bucks, so you should be working your ass off. That’s just known in the travel nursing community that travel nurses get treated poorly when they visit some of these facilities. You will get quite a few that are travel-nurse-friendly, where the staff is amazing, and everyone is so helpful, but then you will get those that don’t want to help you. You’ll be drowning. Your patient may fall, and they’ll walk right by the room or tamper with your patient’s medications, hide medications, and hide the glucometer.

Inside Tips Into Travel Nursing

Travel nursing is not easy. It’s not for the weak, but the pros and the rewards make it worth it. The number one pro with travel nursing is the money. Especially during the COVID pandemic, nurses have been known to gross six figures within three months. It’s such a flexible career option.

You have contracts where you can work as little as four weeks and as much as 26 weeks. I would never recommend a 26-week contract because you’re in that facility for six months. If you hate your assignment, you’re stuck for six months. You can always cancel the contract, but it doesn’t look good with the agency. They may choose not to rehire you or work with you again in the future if you cancel a contract.

The sweet spot for me is six weeks. You’re literally there for a month and two weeks, and if it sucks, we can thug it out for a month and two weeks, you know, and if it’s great, you can extend for another two weeks or another six weeks. I’ve met nurses on contracts who told me, yeah, I love it here I’ve been here for a year. Personally, I can’t stay anywhere past three months because I need a new environment. I need a new city.

Experiencing a New City

Experiencing a new city, new people, a new environment, and a new luxury apartment. Although the rates are going down now, that’s like the big thing. Rates for travel nurses are decreasing, but it’s still better than staff nursing money.

One popular misconception about travel nursing is that you have to be single, you can’t have a family you can’t have kids. That’s a lie. I know many travel nurses with kids. Gone are the days when you must be a single woman or a single man to be a travel nurse. Pack them kids up and head on out.